violation and a war crime,” said Serj Tankian. “All of us in System realize this is an existential battle for our people, so this is very personal for us. What we need right now is for the world to put politics aside and support Armenia by sanctioning Turkey and Azerbaijan and recognizing Artsakh.”
It Took An Attack Against Armenians To Bring It About, But The Wait Is Over System Of A Down Release 2 Brand New Songs By Tank After a 15-year hiatus in recording, System Of A Down is back with two new songs. Yes, the GRAMMY® awardwinning band is back. Of course, it took attacks on Artsakh and Armenia to bring the Platinum-selling band together to record these new songs. The songs are titled “Protect The Land” and “Genocidal Humanoidz.” Guitarist and vocalist Daron Malakian wrote the songs. Daron tells us that “We’re probably the only rock band that has governments as enemies, the only rock band that’s at war, so I wrote these songs to boost the morale of our troops and Armenians around the world.” The catalyst for these new songs is the new conflict between Artsakh and Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan being aided by Turkey in what has been described as the “ greatest violence the region has endured in 26 years”. In addition to writing both the music and lyrics to these two songs, Malakian also produced them as well. Fans of the band have been wondering just what it would take to get System Of A Down back into the studio to record again and now all their questions have been answered, it took a war. For the last 15 years, the band has been unable to come to terms on
how they should record new music. It’s not that anyone was particularly mad at each other, they just couldn’t put together a plan. After a series of unjustified attacks against Artsakh and Azerbaijan by Azerbaijan and Turkey, Daron said enough is enough. It’s time to bury any problems the band had and do something to help this cause. “I texted,” said Malakian, “no matter how we feel about each other, no matter what issues linger from the past, we need to put them aside because this is bigger than System Of A Down and bigger than all of us.....we need to do something to support our people.” After a conference call between the band, they all came to the same conclusion, something needed to be done. The only way for them to do this was through their music…. new music. “The aggression and injustice being perpetrated against the Armenian people in Artsakh and Armenia by Azerbaijan and Turkey is a human rights
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In addition to releasing the two songs, the band has also released a video for the “Protect The Land. The video shares footage of the ground forces fighting in Artsakh along with recent footage of the protests that are taking place there now. As all System Of A Down videos have been taken care of before, bassist Shavo Odadjian was the executive producer of the project and assembled all the artwork for the project. “I wanted to show the unification of our people around the world for one common cause, illustrating the power in numbers,” he said, “so we brought together people from all ages and professions who believe in and are fighting for that same cause. It’s one thing to come up with an idea, but to see it come alive as happened with this video, has been just incredible.” Odadjian also tells us that in regard to the band reconvening for the productions of the two songs and the video, “It was such a pleasure for us to be together in the studio again, very comforting and natural, like no time had passed at all.” System Of A Down is Daron Malakian/guitars, vocals, Serj Tankian/ vocals, Shavo Odadjian/bass, and John Dolmayan/drums. You can check out the music video for “Protect The Land” at https://youtu.be/ XqmknZNg1yw https://systemofadown.com
Clockwise, from Top Left: Daron Malakian, John Dolmayan, Shavo Odadjian, Serj Tankian Photo Credit: Armen Keleshian
